


Fresh Snow, Fresh Start

by TriplePirouette



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Santa Clause (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2887934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OUAT/TheSantaClause crossover. Picks up after the end of the OUAT mid-season finale and follows Ingrid through The Santa Clause 2 as she struggles to make her second chance work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh Snow, Fresh Start

**Author's Note:**

> It’s my Dad’s fault for wanting to watch ALL the Santa Clause movies.
> 
>  
> 
> AN2: I want to acknowledge here that Ingrid is a beautifully complex character as a villain. The things that she did make her dark, twisted, and problematic- especially some of the actions she took in the foster home. HOWEVER, I also believe, based on how she acted in flashbacks and at the very end of her arc, there is the potential for good in her, just like we’ve seen with all the villains on OUAT. I am intentionally not dealing with every aspect that makes her a villain, because on order for the crossover to work she has to be able to shed who she was, just as in order to be Santa, Scott Calvin changes immensely in the first movie. If you are not willing to see the potential of the lovely Carol Newman inside Ingrid for the sake of a fun story, then this is not the story for you. I hope you all enjoy this.

Ingrid woke up in a snowdrift, the early morning light starting to dawn just at the edge of her vision. She felt dizzy, drunk, and more than a little confused. She gently turned her head side to side to shake off the fog in her mind, and took in the metal rungs above and around her. A swing set. A playground. She looked at the monkey bars over her head and wondered what kind of afterlife would have included a park.

 

She pressed herself to sitting, taking in the quiet just before sunrise. The smell of fresh snow soothed her, helped the fog clear from her mind. She took careful inventory and found that she wasn’t hurt. She didn’t seem to be, at least. Her dress was a little dingy, a little more worn, but whatever she’d been through between Storybrooke and here hadn’t killed her. She’d expected death, but she was fairly certain she was alive. Where or how, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to question it.

 

As she ran her hand over the snow a chill that she wasn’t accustomed to began to seep in to her hands and feet. She gave a mental flick, but no magic seeped from her fingers. Snowflakes didn’t swirl at her command and ice walls didn’t shape at her whim. She remembered this feeling from decades ago, the feeling of being helpless without her magic in a new land.

 

She’d done it before, and would again. But this time… this time, it would be different.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

She’d actually been prepared. All her time in Storybrooke, all the talk of never leaving the town, those princesses still didn’t quite understand how useful the internet was. She’d hidden away money, documents, papers… all just in case. She knew that her plan would have worked had things gone her way- but she had already lost Emma once, she was prepared to wait as long as it took back then. A back up plan was always a valuable thing to have, especially after it had taken her so long to find all the things she needed to be successful in this world: a name, a social security number, an address… things she didn’t have to have in her old world. Papers ruled here, and starting from scratch was something she swore she’d never do again.

 

She had a family, too, or what she could call a family. She went by a different name with them, and would have been dead without the couple’s help the first time she’d entered this world. They were only a phone call away, and within fifteen minutes she had been wired money and a bus ticket to a warm bed. 

 

It wasn’t hard to go back to being just a person. She’d played at it for decades and the couple that she called “mom and dad” were happy to have her back in the house. Every once in a while as she rebuilt her life she thought about trying to find Storybroke. She thought about looking for a portal to Arandelle, she thought about trying to find a way to redeem herself. Then she would think of her sisters, remember that letter than Anna had read to her and realized that this was her chance. This was her way to redeem everything.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Getting a job was paramount. She needed a way to keep busy, to make a living, to get the money that was so valuable to this world in order just to exist. The documents and degrees she’d amassed the first time she was without magic could help her, but left her only a few options. She didn’t want to repeat her old life, to sit in a foster home and grieve over lost chances and poor decisions with each blonde head that stayed with her. She wanted a new start. This could be it.

 

Ingrid turned her attention back to the woman across from her. “I’ve had a very interesting life, and yes, some of those things will be applicable to the children here.”

 

The woman in her knock off designer suit smiled politely and looked over Ingrid’s resume again. “It says you ran a foster home? Why did you stop?”

 

Ingrid took a deep breath and forced a smile. “It was too hard seeing all those children that I couldn’t help in the long term. I wanted to provide a future for all of them, but I didn’t have the resources to do that. I opened my home and wanted to keep each and every one that passed through my doors. I couldn’t be everything that they needed, but there were certain things that I was very good at and that’s why I pursued education. Knowing that I have a responsibility in only one area of their lives, well, it makes it easier. I used to take on far too much; I had ideas that were… too grand to ever be realized. I want to start over, find a way I can help these kids.”

 

She meant it. It caught in her throat how much she meant it. She hadn’t really helped all of the children under her care, in fact she’d seen how dark some of them were, darker than herself, and had helped them along on a path to self destruction. Some of those actions should have gotten her a nice, warm corner in the deepest pits of hell. Some of the children, though, some of them she had loved. Some of them she’d had the highest hopes for. She’d had a set of twins that she’d loved deeply, and even considered adopting. She hadn’t found Emma at that point though, and let them, and a chance at happiness, go without a fight. She sighed, took a deep breath, and said the only thing she’d said today that hadn’t been rehearsed. “I know what it’s like to feel unwanted, to feel different. I want to give the kids that feel the same way the help I never got.”

 

 

Somehow, she’d been granted a second chance. Somehow, that letter and the transformation that brought her here wiped some of the black from her heart. Somehow, she was ready to start over. Without the power, without the snide looks, with no one left in her life except the people she let in- she felt like a completely new person, like she had a brand new life ahead of her. 

 

The woman across from her smiled. “You’re not likely to get the same types of issues with the children here that you did in the foster home. It’s only a part time guidance position in the high school open, but you’re more than qualified for it. It’s yours if you’d like it. Miss Newman.”

 

Ingrid, once again going through life as Carol Newman, shook the woman’s hand as she stood. “Yes, I think that would be wonderful.”

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

The transition from part time to full time to Principal only took a few years and a few classes at the local college. It was a small town and the kids were generally good. The kids needed some discipline, but she knew from being a Queen that most people didn’t understand what true discipline meant.

 

Every once in a while she would wonder about Storybrooke, or think of her sisters, but Carol Neuman was a new person. Carol found new wrinkles next to her eyes and would shiver in the cold. Carol couldn’t freeze things with a thought and had to pay for heat in her home.

 

After a while, she didn’t have to think about being Carol, she simply was her. The silver gown that was in the back of her closet was the last reminder she had, and there were even days she thought about burning the it along with the last vestiges of who she was.

 

So few people ever got a real second chance, especially when they’d hurt so many. She would honor her sisters, and live the best life that she could.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Being the principal of the small school wasn’t easy. She carried over a reputation from her time as a guidance counselor: she was harsh and critical and wouldn’t stand for anything less than every student’s best. Well, there were worse things to be labeled as; she knew that for sure.

 

All she needed to do was look them in the eye. So few people looked each other in the eyes anymore. It had been one of her first and most important lessons as her mother prepared her to be queen: look everyone in the eyes, even the servants, and let them see the truth on your soul. It was a powerful lesson that she took to heart and it always worked. It helped her connect with the children who were hurting and needed an adult who cared; it helped her strike fear into the children who didn’t want to play by the rules.

 

If there was just a glimmer of magic left on her soul, a dark spot on her heart that made those children hell bent on being bad fear her even more, well, she wasn’t going avoid using that little advantage.

 

One boy, though, was the first to test her in almost a decade. He was nervous around her, but not afraid like the others. Whatever spark that frightened everyone else did nothing to him, and it concerned her. Was his soul that black? Or had he seen magic before? She couldn’t put her finger on quite what it was that made Charlie Calvin different, she just knew she needed to keep a close eye on him.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Carol could feel magic when he was around. It was a slick thrumming, a vibration that she knew others could feel but didn’t understand. She played dumb, she didn’t want to believe that magic had found her again, not when she’d worked so hard to banish it from her life and strived to be a better person.

 

Charlie was a normal boy, rebelling from his parent’s divorce and his absent father. But his father was something different- not just a man. Her fingers itched to touch the magic again, to feel it. She ached to be around him, not only because the magic made her yearn for it again, but because he made her smile. He challenged her, he kept her on her toes, and she craved that sort of witty attention. She couldn’t remember ever feeling that way about anyone except her sisters, never mind a man before.

 

She didn’t know who, or what, Scott Calvin was, but she knew he was dangerous.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Carol looked around the sparsely decorated gym with sadness. Their holiday party should be so much more festive. There should be dancing and merriment- like at the Solstice Balls in her royal past. The few donated decorations were flimsy and cheap, not enough to brighten the space. If she had magic she could have created a winter wonderland, but she was like an addict. She stayed away from the shiny images of ice castles and swirling snow, hid from the holiday cheer of winter to try to forget the pull of her power.

 

But she hadn’t been lying when she said there was no money in the budget for Christmas. She ran a public school, which meant that religion couldn’t, and shouldn’t be a factor. If she decorated for Christmas then she also needed to decorate for Hanukah and Kwanza and any other holiday even one student professed to celebrating. If the kids in a class were going to do a Christmas project that meant that the teacher needed to accurately and equally represent other religions, too. The time, money and energy it would take not only for supplies and decorations, but to make sure that teachers accurately taught everything was astronomical. A green and red wreath made out of construction paper in art class didn’t seem all that hard to supply, until one saw that a case of construction paper cost as much as the new copies of the novels they needed for the Honors English Class, or as much as two graphing calculators for the Calculus class.

 

As much as she loved the holidays, it was her job to weigh the pros and cons. Equal representation or no representation seemed simple enough, and when no representation meant that other areas that needed the money got it, well, it wasn’t really a choice for her.

 

But the party around her was pitiful, and she understood very deeply how important a little holiday cheer could be. Her mother’s voice echoed in her memory, “Keep you staff happy, darling.” Scott cracked another joke, and she could only smile sadly at him. The pit of her stomach dropped out when he was around, her skin tingled and she couldn’t tell where the magic stopped and her own ache for a friend, for a companion, began.

 

He worked far away, she wouldn’t be able to see him often, but maybe that was a good thing. She’d never really had a relationship with a man, and long distance- letters and e-mails and phone calls- might be the easiest way to get things started.

 

Then again he might just be sweet talking her to get his son out of trouble. It wouldn’t be the first time. She shook her head again and held back a sigh. “I owe you, Scott.”

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

She hadn’t lied. Not really. There was a lovely couple that “adopted her” when she had first arrived in this world. She told them a sad story about being an orphan her whole life and how she’d had a boyfriend take all her money and everything she owned in this world, and they’d taken her in right away. They’d helped her so much, and they insisted she call them mom and dad. They were good people, but they did fight. They’d helped her so much, but made her even more cynical about family and love, fueling her desires to find Elsa and Emma and create her own perfect family.

 

She’d never had the Baby Doll, though. That was just a fantasy she’d made up for herself one night as she wondered what it would be like had she been born to the fiery red head and the know-it-all construction worker. She’d seen pictures of kids with dolls and trucks and imagined that they’d have showered her with gifts, that she’d have had her own Baby Doll to love and take care of, to make her very own. She wanted a family more than anything, and even playing at it somehow left her heart broken.

 

So it wasn’t really a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either. Yet somehow, somehow he’d taken those words that she had said and turned them into truth.

 

He had magic. It was the only answer. She didn’t want to know how or what or why. He didn’t know who she was; he didn’t accuse her of her horrible history. No, she’d take this for as long as she could, she’d play at being an adult, maybe even dating him, pretending she was a normal person and that maybe they had a future together for as long as she was able.

 

Soon enough she’d find out where his magic came from, soon enough he’d know the truth about her and her life would crumble to pieces and she’d have to start again. But for now…

 

…for now holding her Baby Doll tight with her lips pressed to his in the doorway of her school, she was pretty sure that this was what True Love’s Kiss felt like.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Carol shut the door behind Scott Calvin, and locked it for good measure. Three dates. That was all she had gotten before it all went to hell.

 

She couldn’t breathe. He was Santa Claus. She knew with every fiber of her being that he was telling the truth, but it shook her.

 

She was a villain. She hurt people. She killed people.

 

She wanted Santa to be her boyfriend.

 

She couldn’t. Maybe Carol could have, but Ingrid- Ingrid was still very much a part of her, and the desire to touch him just because of his magic- well that was far too dangerous. Santa Claus was far more than she’d even been expecting. A mage, a lowly wizard, a portal hopper… all things she’d considered he might be. All gambles she was willing to take. A Legendary Figure? The most beloved icon of the holiday season in this world and others? It hadn’t ever crossed her mind that he could be someone of that caliber. Even the darkness in her heart that was yearning to gain power again knew that it was the wrong choice. She’d sent him out of her life and she hoped he was far too much of a hero to ever come back.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

She shouldn’t be doing this. The Snow Queen shouldn’t be flying with the actual Tooth Fairy and Charlie over a quarter of the world to profess her love for Santa. She should have said no when Charlie came to talk to her. She had such an easy out: she didn’t love him. It would have been so easy to say, “I’m sorry, Charlie, I don’t love your father.” It would have been a lie, though.

 

What she couldn’t hide was how she felt when she looked into the snow globe. It was like the wonder of her childhood when she built ice forts for her and her sisters to play in. It was like the first time she’d made a snowman that danced for her. It was like every moment of happiness before the fear and the power took hold of her. And she wanted it. She wanted that happiness more then the power.

 

She kept telling herself that. She kept reminding herself that she wanted the happiness. The happiness was the most important thing. She repeated it like a mantra over and over, because as she got closer and closer to the heart of Scott’s magic and snow and ice slowly took over the landscape she started to shake with fear that she might be enveloped by her desire for power.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

She didn’t tell him. She was standing there with a cape and flowers and her hair done by elves and she hadn’t told him. Mother Earth, a being of a kind of power that she’d never even felt before, was marrying them and her husband to be didn’t know anything about who she truly was.

 

But wouldn’t it have been worse to tell him? Fifteen minutes or less in order to save Christmas for millions of children. Fifteen minutes in order to get married. Fifteen minutes wasn’t enough time to tell him, it just wasn’t.

 

And maybe… maybe he didn’t need to know. Maybe the love she felt in this moment, the joy, was enough. Maybe she’d found happiness with this rotund man in red and white, this jolly being that according to Charlie had been a different man in a different life before the North Pole. Maybe, just maybe, if she didn’t tell him, she could find a new beginning here.

 

She looked over at the brown hair that would change over to white in a minute, the baggy suit that would fill out, the sparkling eyes that she hoped would never change and felt that stirring in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to be with this man, no matter if his name was Scott or Santa, and all the snow, the ice… she found it comforting, like this was supposed to be home all along. The chill here wasn’t as cold, as biting, and the warmth of the elves… well, deep in her heart she knew. As Mother Earth began the ceremony she finally felt like she was getting a second chance.

 

~*~

* * *

 

 

Carol paced the small room in the workshop. Bernard said that Scott had a smaller place with a little more privacy that he lived in during the off season, and boy did she need it. He wouldn’t be back for hours, and yet she was already afraid of what was going to happen. The magic of their ceremony, the giddiness she felt, had worn off as his sleigh disappeared from sight, as the elves all dispersed to different control rooms or home for the night. She felt utterly lonely when Bernard had shown her to the empty room and closed the door as he left, letting her know that one of the female staff would be over in a while to check on her and with an extra set of clothes for the night.

 

Twenty hours left. He’d only been gone for four, and even with the magic he used to make it a one-night trip, it would still be twenty hours before he came back to her, or so Curtis had explained at a break neck pace.

 

She felt it itching beneath her skin, the lies, the lack of truth, the magic. She reached out her hand, then puled it back in quickly. Maybe it was better to not know. She felt the energy thrumming in her, and it wasn’t the endorphins from her decision or the anticipation of seeing him again or the frustration of being all alone. It was the thrum of magic back in her body.

 

She stopped at his desk. She needed to know. She needed to know what she was going to say to him. She gently laid a finger on the rim of the cocoa cup on the desk. The frost was immediate, and the bit of cocoa inside was chocolate ice cube before she could even think to stop. She pulled her hand back and cradled it to her chest, biting her lip.

 

She ran to the door, throwing it open. No one was there. Bernard and Curtis were in some kind of control room three halls back, and that was far too important to interrupt.

 

The thought swirled round and round in her head. ‘What happens to Christmas if he changes his mind? If he decides he… if he doesn’t want to… if Scott doesn’t want to be married to me anymore?’ She paced the room working hard to keep her power at bay. It always swirled out of control when she was upset, and the decades of working hard to keep her powers controlled were harder to recall now than they’d ever been. The magic of the pole was seeping into her, it became harder and harder to control it with each given minute.

 

Just as she was about to toss some magic at the tree, release it in a burst of energy to help her control, there was a knock at the door. She jogged over, expecting an elf, but was surprised to find Mother Earth and Father Time. “Oh! Oh, um, Come in…” She swept to the side and allowed the stoic figures to enter, wringing her hands close to her body. She took a deep breath and centered herself, calling on her royal training and her days as a stoic principal to take the fear and frustration off her face.

 

Mother Earth, far more stern than the woman remembered from her wedding, started. “We know what you are.”

 

Carol started to open her mouth, but Mother Earth held up her hand and continued. “I can sense that there is more to you than just a school teacher. We don’t know who you are, or what you can do, and we’re not here to scare you.”

 

“I can tell you’ve been given a second chance.” Father Time shook his head and smiled a little. “Your life line is far, far longer than any normal woman’s should be.”

 

Carol bit her lip, and tensed her shoulders. She met their gazes, eyes struggling to hide everything that she felt. “I have a long and complicated past.”

 

Mother Earth shook her head. “I don’t need to know it. But Santa, Scott, does.” The legend looked around the room, smiling at the festive decorations. “Scott is the best Santa we’ve had in centuries. The changes he’s brought here, to the elves, to children around the world…”

 

Father Time rested a comforting hand on Carol’s shoulder. “We’re not here to scare you, but you must know that as the Council of Legendary Figures we will do all in our power to ensure that Scott Calvin continues to be Santa Claus.”

 

“I would never want him to stop. I… I wouldn’t interfere with that.” Carol was in awe. As powerful as she was again, these beings held a magic in them that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

 

“Good.” Mother Earth nodded. “Whatever secrets you have, you share them with your husband.” She softened, and then smiled. “You both deserve to be happy, every human should have another to love.” Her eyes fluttered and Father Time groaned.

 

“Now you’re getting dreamy eyes. Did Sandy sneak in here? I thought you said be tough.” Father Time nodded at Carol and pushed Mother Earth out of the room with his walking stick. “I wanted to go the nice route, you said be tough, and now you’re talking about love and mushiness?” He closed the door behind them, and in an instant it was like they were never there.

 

She hadn’t needed the warning, but she was glad for it all the same as a reminder of what was at stake. Carol ran to the back of the room and threw open the window. If she was going to tell him the truth, he needed to know all of it. It wouldn’t due to tell him about things she could no longer do! She stuck her head out and found a clear field, not an elf in sight. With the flick of her wrist it was snowing fresh, light flakes. A few swirls of her fingers and ice castles and snowmen sprung from the powder. Carol laughed happily, starting a snowball fight between two pine trees.

 

She would never put Scott’s life as Santa in jeopardy, but he needed to know the whole truth. Suddenly, those twenty hours that seemed like a death sentence just a few minutes ago couldn’t pass quickly enough. She would tell him her story, and with it came a chance at a truly new beginning.

 

Ingrid, the Snow Queen of Arandelle, was ready to turn away from the darkness and take on her new life as Carol Newman, Mrs. Clause.

 

 

 


End file.
